My Mayo Exploded!

By consumerist.comOctober 8, 2007

This jar of exploding mayonnaise serves as a reminder why one should pay attention to the “sell-by” dates on the sides of packages. Submitter Doug writes:

Yesterday my mother went to open a new jar of Stop and Shop light mayonnaise. After she unscrewed the cap the contents started bubbling out from under the seal. She removed the seal and the result is what you see here. We took it back to the store, where they apologized and replaced it with the non-exploding kind.

You can see in the picture that the jar is six months past its sell-by date. UPDATE: Oops, we’re stupid, that’s the year 2008. Damn, there’s no reason for this mayo to go unless maybe that’s a misprint. Why would it explode, though? Bacteria get inside and cause a gaseous buildup? We’re betting heavy on “compromised seal.” Full-size pics inside…

It wouldn’t have surprised me if it was an ’07 though. When I worked in a grocery store, I would spend hours in my section(meat) trying to get all the expired stuff off the shelfs, and would still miss stuff. Always be mindful of the dates. Most stores do a pretty good job, but no one is perfect.

If you must have mayo, make your own. Throw 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice and an egg into your blender at the LOWEST possible speed, then drizzle in a stream of olive oil AS SLOWLY as you possibly can (if you add it too quickly, you will break the emulsion and end up with something completely disgusting). Can’t really say how much oil to use other than you will be able to tell when you’ve added enough — it will look like mayonnaise. At this point, add salt + pepper + whatever else you want (season to taste). I like cilantro in mine.

I’m voting for bacterial contamination. Not sure what botulism looks like, and I’d be surprised if it had such a, uh, violent manisfestation. But definitely not anything I’d risk spreading on my sammich.

Mayonaise is great but it’s so much better if you just make it yourself. The store bought stuff tastes so awful in comparison. Of course the flip side is that because its composed of almost 100% fat it basically goes rancid very quickly.

I think even store bought mayonaise goes bad fairly quickly on a relative basis compared to other products like ketchup or mustard.

I’m not sure as to why the jar would be bubbling since the article states that it was a new jar not a previously opened one that had been sitting in the fridge for some time. I would expect it to begin separating not bubbing over if it was expired.

I’m not surprised either. When I worked in a grocery store, I noticed a great deal of the luncheon meats from a particular vendor were all out of date. After notifying my manager, she said we couldn’t do anything about it because “it is a vendor stocked item, the best we can do is notify the vendor.It is up to them if they want to replace it or not.” Vendor didn’t pull the expired meat (now about 3 weeks past date), and the store ended up pulling it anyways.

I guess that’s a commissary for you, though.

This is interesting though. As in, disgusting interesting. Since it isn’t even past its sell by date, why would it explode? Will we be seeing a massive mayo recall coming up? Stay tuned…

@zouxou: I tried for three years in highschool to get into the home ec class and every year they said ‘no.’ Damnit…

Anyways, we don’t know for sure if the seal was compromised because of the gas buildup, or if it caused it. Either is possible, and the company would probably have to inspect or something to ensure that this did not happen to other jars from the same lot. The fact they were able to trade for a non-exploding jar is promising, though.

Maybe the explosion is a result of anaerobic bacterial fermentation inside the mayo jar (assuming the jar was properly sealed the first time)? Damn, I don’t think I can have mayo with my food for a while now…

@zouxou: I figured as much, and its unfortunate most schools don’t. Mine limited it to only 9th-11th graders, and had very limited availability. And good point..I really hope that is the only can with a compromised seal too, heh.

I learned the hard way that mayo does not take well to freezers, when our fridge broke and we were frantically tossing all the food into the larger freezer in our house to preserve it a jar of mayo got tossed into the freezer, it didn’t look too pretty when it came out, so we tossed it. It wasn’t a full jar so I cannot comment on the explosion factor but my guess is that this jar was frozen at some point and possibly thawed before it was opened, and when it was opened it exploded. The mayo coming from this jar doesn’t look quite right either. The mayo could have gotten frozen if a customer decided they didn’t want it and ditched it in a freezer in the frozen section.

There are very few things I won’t eat, but mayo, Twinkies, and beef liver are high on the list. Mayo and Twinkies for opposite reasons, of course: one goes bad without warning, the other is so full of preservatives it’s likely to retain its form until the next Ice Age. Neither being especially tasty or good for you, I’ll pass. Food should be ONE or the other.

@dlab: Because it’s technically a type of aioli. Also, the other reason too. When most people think of mayonnaise, they think of the horrid processed crap.

Maybe it’s just me and my weird way of naming things, but I’d rather call it aioli than “mayo”. Would you really want your hard-earned homemade concoction to be associated with something disgusting as mayonnaise?

Kinda looks like “Great Stuff” expanding foam. New marketing campaign for Stop and Shop focused at the construction worker “Our Light Mayonayse used to help fill your stomach, and that large gaping hole between the wall and that window you just installed”. Now if they could only find a way to package it in a spray can like Redi-whip.

*goes to the kitchen*
i had a ketchup bottle that did this one time. maybe it is bad that i ate from it? this was like 8 years ago, but the ketchup was fine… probably some kind of air bubble / air pressure buildup.

Once in a restaurant, my friend sitting next to me had ketchup explode in his face as he was opening it. The ketchup had obviously fermented and smelled strongly of alcohol. I often see waiters combining half-full ketchup bottles, so they always have a full one to give to customers. My guess is this bottle had been re-used for far too long.

My boyfriend’s stepfather has a can of apricot juice in his pantry that is about to explode at the seams. I keep insisting that it belongs in the trash and probably infested with botulism, but he won’t listen.